Gurguling/Swishing Fluid Noise in Dash?

[jta_albert]

Hi all,I hope somebody can help me here, and possibly give some insight as to what may be going on. So heres the scoop on my "Lemon" Vibe, that I wish would stop having problems, because I actually like it!!!At around 30K, I started noticing a strange noise when the A/C compressor was engaged (Kind of a "helicopter" noise as I heard somebody else describe it on this forum). I took it to the dealer, and eventually they heard the noise, and they replaced my A/C compressor. (This was around 42K miles, but they did not charge me thankfully) After the compressor was replaced, everything seemed to fine, no more noise. (I might add that before it was replaced, the A/C drainage pipe decided to start draining into my front passenger seat, but I did not notice this untill everything was completley soaked, and they had to remove all the seats and the carpet to air it out. That sucked!!!!)Well, now at 50K, one day I turned on the heat, and smoking radiator fluid started coming out of my vents. This was the heater core gone bad, and they had to replace it. (They pretty much had to remove everything to get to it). Since it was replaced, I am hearing a strange gurguling/swishing fluid noise in my dash. It is very faint, and goes away then comes back. Also, it seems that my A/C is not working at its full capacity, the air does not get very cold at all.So, I have showed the noise to the dealer, and they do not know what it is, but plan to look into before setting up an appointment. They say that my A/C is probably not getting to cold because the weather is not taht hot yet. (That sounds sill to me, shouldnt it wok no matter what?)Anyway, thats my story, I am considering selling the thing because I wonder what else will go wrong. But other than all that, I lov the car, and wish I could just get along with it!!!!Any ideas on what could be causing the swishing noise?Please help, I am almost ready to give up on the thing.Thanks,Jon

[Raven]

First of all, Welcome to Genvibe! You should get together with ColonelPanic, a regular on Genvibe. He loves to hate his Vibe too. Sounds like you have air in the cooling system. Have you checked the coolant level? It could be full but have bubbles in it. My truck did the same thing when I changed the coolant last year.

[jta_albert]

Thanks for the welcome,I did check the coolant level, and it seems to be full. You mentioned possible air in the system, but I guess I dont know how to check for that. Any help on that?Oh yeah, one other problem I had in the past I forgot to mention. The throttle body had to be replaced. I dont remeber to much, but I seem to think there was a hissing noise when accelerating, but the new throttle body fixed the problem.Am I alone with all these problems? Or is this typical of the Vibe? I do see people posting with allot of problems, but ma,n I have had them all it seems.Oh, and my Vibe is a 2004.

[jta_albert]

Oh yeah, one more thing I fogot about. I had the driver side window poping problem I see people talking about. They had to replace some part and it was fixed. Not sure what it was, but no problem since.

[ColonelPanic]

Welcome aboard, and I certainly know how you feel. Wow, the same problems! see GenVibers, I'm not making these things up! Mine was actually making that same gurgling sound from the dash any time I ran the A/C... If it was off, it would go away. I think the dealer told me it was "normal" but I can't remember for sure, I've had to ask them about so much other stuff... It seems to have gone away or at least I've gotten used to it... I think there are some other threads around about the issue, I'll try to dig something up on it.The Vibe's A/C isn't great to begin with (IMHO) and when things start dying on you, it gets even worse. I noticed mine cools very little now, and it isn't even warm yet... I still need another new A/C compressor though, this will be #4. Hang in there!

[ColonelPanic]

Quote, originally posted by jta_albert »Oh yeah, one more thing I fogot about. I had the driver side window poping problem I see people talking about. They had to replace some part and it was fixed. Not sure what it was, but no problem since.And hey, I'm going in for the same thing too on Monday...

[jta_albert]

Yeah, I here you have allot of the same problems. So it's not just me. But it does seem that I am the only one who has had the Heater Core replaced. (Lucky Me!!!)One thing with my gurguling noise, it does not seem to have any relation to the A/C. So hopefully my new compressor is fine, and will not start making noise like the old one.Hopefully my gurguling noise is air in the coolant like Sunny said (not sure how that will be fixed, maybe just flush and refill?). I am hopefull that I wont have anymore major problems, and I can move on with my life Anyway, I will update once/if I get the gurguling noise fixed.

[ColonelPanic]

Yep, I don't recall any other heater core recipients around. My service history from GM shows that I've had one but that's one thing that I haven't head break thus far... That was just the dealer using that to find a way to make sure that they could reinstall the dash when it broke loose, since GM didn't want to cover "rattle" repairs under the GM extended warranty even though a dash completely loose is a bit more than a "rattle." So they just told them they put a heater core on it so they could get paid for a repair that the car legitimately needed but GM didn't want to pay for. Good luck to ya, keep us posted, and hope to see you around!